Lemon Cream Cheese Bars

I am not a lemon person but I will try anything with cream cheese. I found this recipe on Pinterest and is originally from Recipetips.com They were fairly easy to make, I didn't get any pics of the process but I did take a nice picture of the lemons I bought in my pretty silver bowl :) 

Ingredients are 

1 box of lemon cake

1/3 c butter

1 egg

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 c powdered sugar

1/2 lemon-grated

2 tbsp lemon juice or 1/2 fresh squeezed lemon

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350

1. Mix dry cake mix, butter, and 1 egg.

2. Press into a 9 x 13 ungreased pan

3.Beat the cream cheese until smooth.

4. Gradually blend in the powdered sugar.

5. Stir in lemon peel and lemon juice until smooth.

Save 1/2 cup of this mixture and refrigerate it for later use.

6. Beat the remaining 2 eggs, add the vanilla, and then beat this mixture into the remaining cream cheese mixture until well blended.

7. Spread over the cake mixture.

Bake about 25 to 30 minutes.

Cool completely.

Spread the saved cream cheese mixture onto the bars.

Stick in the refrigerator until cool (I hate this part, takes too long)

Sad picture, I didn't have good light and I'm not even going to pretend I'm a photographer

The mixture of cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and peel was definitely the best part of this dessert. I wasn't crazy about the crust but other people that ate it liked it. 

I think I am going to make some sugar cookies and use the cream cheese/lemon mixture as icing. That should be awesome.

Mexican Speciale'

Just for the record, this dish was named by my husband :) 

Ok! I found the recipe for something similar to this on Pinterest and tweaked it a little bit. The original recipe was Campbells Beef Taco Skillet. It calls for 1lb ground beef, 1 can of tomato soup, 1/2 c of salsa,  1/2 c of water, 6 tortillas and cheddar cheese.

This is what I did...

1 lb lean ground beef

1 can enchilada sauce (I chose red, you could use either)

1/2 c salsa (but only because Jade put it in there against my will)

1/2 c water

6 tortillas

1/2 c sour cream

mexican blend cheese

1. First thing I browned the ground beef and drain the grease

While the beef is browning tear the tortillas into small little strips, about 1-2 inches

2. Stir in the water, enchilada sauce and tortilla strips until it gets hot and starts bubbling. 

3. Stir in the sour cream and salsa and then top with cheese

and YUM!

The best thing about this meal was that it was SO fast to make, especially if the ground beef is already thawed out. It was ready to eat within 10 minutes of when I started making it.

Photo Contest

I just found out that Max is in a photo contest for the Big Spring Herald. Follow the link and vote for him!!! He's definitely the cutest one on there!

http://www.bigspringherald.com/photo_contest

GO MAX!

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Best Most Addicting Stuff Ever!

I made this on Saturday at my in-laws for the first time and then had to make it on Monday for the 4th. What makes it even better is that it's SO easy.

2 cans of crescent rolls

16 ounces of cream cheese (next time I will get the low fat and pretend like it's healthy)

2 cups of sugar

1/2 cup of butter

1 and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

cinnamon to taste

1. Put 1 can of crescent rolls into a pan, the big rectangle size one (technical huh?)

make sure you spray the pan first

I forgot to start taking pictures until I had passed step 1, ignore the glob of goodness

2. Mix the cream cheese, 1 c sugar and vanilla. Get a clean spoon and eat a good spoonful of it and then put that spoon in the sink. Get a clean spatula and smear the gooey goodness on top of the crescent roll

The star is not necessary, but it was the 4th of July, I think it made it taste a little better

3. Roll out the 2nd crescent roll on top

4. Melt the 1/2 c of butter and then stir in 1 c of sugar. and poor that on top. Sprinkle cinnamon to taste.

Cook at 350 for 30 minutes and it will come out looking like this... 

I know...!

What's even better is when you cut into it, it looks like this...

4th of July!

I love me some 4th of July! It is my favorite holiday and I am always determined to make it a fun day. We started off by walking to Santa Rita park to watch the neighborhood parade with some friends.

Max found a flag that was in the ground and waved it like a pro!

Will found some water and threw mesquite beans until he figured out there was candy being thrown.

Then we decided we were going to try to make all 5 kids stand still to take a picture.

I wanted to do a fun project but didn't think about it until the last minute... we mixed acrylic paint with water, put some drops on the paper and then blew it with straws.

It was supposed to look like fireworks and if you squint your eyes it kind of does. When you're in the process of doing it, it absolutely does not.

This is Wills

This is mine

I also attempted some festive snacks for the party that evening, marshmallows dipped in chocolate with sprinkles on top. The trick was fitting that shoe box with 18 skewers sticking out of it into the refrigerator. The chocolate wasn't dry so none of them could touch the others or anything else in the refrigerator, very awkward...

I tried one and they weren't very good, but awfully cute.

The party was at my parents house. They have a perfect view of the fireworks show from their back patio. There's not much of a yard but a big patio and lots of rocks and dirt... the cousins were entertained for hours!

Max spent a good half hour throwing a frisbee over the fence...

Happy Independence Day!

Random Loves

A couple weeks ago the boys played in the pool while I layed out. We were getting ready to go in the house and I ran in to get their towels and they had a better idea. Cuties!

I also got to hang out with my sweet friends and their sweet babies! Allison is holding Liv (KK's baby) and KK is holding Calvin (Allisons baby). Sweetest things ever!

For my birthday I got to go to Kerrville for Mamacitas and some awesome shopping at my most favorite fabric store in the whole world, Creations, and we hit up some other craft antique-y shops. When I got home I had to spread everything out in the floor and take pictures of it!

This is actually a really big frame with a piece of plywood nailed on the back, I am going to paint the middle with chalkboard paint and then paint the frame real cute for my mother-in-laws kitchen! In the middle of it is some coral/pink doilies... I have a plan.

Craft store finds, the pink with flowers on the right, leopard and red little roll in the middle are all oil cloth.  The rest is regular cotton fabric that is fun and I'll figure something out for it!

Ah, Creations! Gorgeous colors and patterns!

 I stayed with my sweet great aunt Jo while in Kerrville. She is getting ready to move and had her garage full of garage sale piles. So I shopped in there quite a bit too! 

On Pinterest I found tons of ideas to do with old maps and at Jo's I found an old atlas and two very large world maps, so excited!

Found these pretty shells and the turquoise linen napkin that they're on, not sure what will happen with them but love em all!

And my boys hit the jack pot with 4 rolls of drawing paper, crayons and sidewalk chalk.

These doilies were made by Aunt Jo's mother in law and a couple other family members that I can't remember at the moment. But they're lovely and will eventually be a table runner for my dining table. As soon as I am able to lay them all out and work on it without a little boy running up and pulling them all off of the table. Don't hold your breath.